my eyes >.>
its soooo red lol
that looks like you get alot of looks when driving around town

 

I did this in my back yard. $230 in total material including tape.

 

that bright red x-tra cab, is absolutely fantastic..more info PLEASE LOL

 

my mouth dropped when i saw that red ext. cab... thats one vibrant red... :O

 

I KNOW RIGHT!

wtf are you doing posting on yotatech Mak!?!?? you should be getting your suspension together!!! LMAO

 

JollyGreen is that bed liner ?? Have any more pics ?

 

Im pretty sure it is. I thought about doing my old jeep like that but if you ever decide to re do it, it will be a pain in the ass to get off.

 

After a ton of reading, here are a few things I've learned - maybe they'll help some other noobs.

A good starting place is determining what your goal is. James Dean's runner is incredible. It looks lke it could be a showcar. I'd love to have that coverage and look, but it doesn't fit my time-budget or $-budget for my everyday runner. Mojavedude put it best for what I'm after - make it look good from 10 feet. Maybe even 5 feet.

Use urethane paint. It lays down nice, and is much more chip resistant than enamel.

Paint products are ridiculously expensive.

A primary difference between a decent paint job and a great one is "depth". If you are wanting a great job, but you don't achieve that look of depth, you prolly won't be happy.

Singlestage paint combines paint with clearcoat in one product. It can produce very good results, even good depth. Your materials cost will be lower because you are not paying for separate base paint and clearcoat. I found many posts by pros giving how-tos for SS, and showing awesome results. I read a post on one thread where a noob chose SS solid color for his hotrod over the advice of many who wanted him to use base/clear. His job turned out great, and he loved it. His comment: "as a noob painting my first car, I wanted a decent look for a $250 budget, not a $700 budget". To get good results with metallic SS, you really need to know what you are doing, so it's not recommended for noobs.

Base coat/clear coat BC/CC is the "other" route, and preferred by many because it's easier to achieve great results with metallic paints. You can fix drips or runs or other errors in the base coat, or color-sand the base coat, and then clearcoat everything, and it will be perfect. You can't do that with SS. BC/CC is more expensive because you buy more materials. The job takes longer because you spray more coats of product.

If your existing paint is good, and you know for a fact that it's urethane, you can sand, fix, dewax, degrease, final-clean, and then spray right over it with either SS or BC urethane paint. If the existing paint is in good condition, and you go with a solid color that is close to the existing color, the job can be fast because the tiny cracks and crevices matter less.

If the existing paint is bad, or not urethane, you need to sand and prep, spray an epoxy primer/sealer, sand and prep, then paint. If you spray urethane over something not compatible, you'll have adhesion problems; ie chips and scratches easily.

TCPGlobal sells mail-order paint. They can make any color. They have a house brand. You can get a urethane SS kit (gallon of paint, reducer, hardener) for $109. You can get a gallon BC/CC kit for $229. Primer/sealer is about $35. Wax remover degreaser is $10. Tack cloths are a buck apiece. They sell a decent spray gun kit for $80. Etc. It's a pretty popular place for the DIY crowd. It's not total crap paint. One post I read claimed to know the management there; said they use Valspar resins.

So that's where I'm at. I'm gonna save a few bucks, and probably paint my red runner Speedway Blue BC/CC metallic in a few months. I probably will remove the doors and hood and easy stuff. I probably will not remove any windows. I gotta find that balance of getting a good look vs. total disassembly, and I think that's probably something you have to learn while doing. It's entirely possible that once i start taking stuff off, I'll change my mind and shoot a quick solid red SS and be done. We'll see...

Any decent paint job starts with prep, and there is a lot of it. If you want to do a $50 roller job, start with prep first. After you have 20 hours into prep, think again whether you want to stay with a flat enamel roller look, or if it's worth another $100 or $200 to shoot a decent SS job in your driveway.

Lots of guys get lots of great results in their driveways.

Thanks for the feedback here.

Last words of advice from a tech at TCP: "old cars have weird types of paint, so be sure to use primer/sealer. If it's a daily driver, you wanna prep and shoot and be done, so use SS and use a color close to your existing color.

Good luck everyone!

 

heres my 87 just painted it Tuesday night. tell me what u think. its a flat green and i sprayed bedliner on the bottom and on the rims. looks awesome. i sprayed 5 coats of it myself in my garage with a borrowed spray gun that was awesome to use. the over spray etc was minimal and smell wasnt bad at all. i had a window open and a fan blowing to keep the smell from going into the house. All in all im very happy

oh ya i got a steal on the paint. 20 a gallon. and yes its automotive paint. and i still have half a gallon left. spent a total of 100 on supplies including rust repair.

 

Yes, just do a search for posts by me and you will find it. Its bedliner.

 

@ Bone, is that a 2WD bed, or do your wheels just stick out alot?

 

painted mine at home

 

uhm....ok?

 

umm ok?

 

Theres no picture of it..
lol..

 

the real key to panting is what lies below the paint ... a good wet sanding with 600 grit assuming there is no body work plenty of windex to get rid of the grease and road grime or use ammonia to wipe it down grease is a disaster for paint usea good gun sata is the best if u can afford it for those of u painting in tha garage drape up some clear plastic sheets masking tape the edges use 2 x4 at the botttom and get some fans and u got a spray booth that will work good mist the floor and surrounding areas with water to keep the dust gown wear a damm resperator or ull be going to the emergency room !!!
keep the gun 8" from the surface overlap the stroke by 50% and move steady dont panic two or three turns out on the material screw use a
moisture trap at the back of the spray gun mix ur paint as the instructions say and very important use the correct temp reducer for the conditions if ur day is super hot usea slow speed reducer if its like 70' use medum if is
damm cold use a fast speed reducer tcpglobal.com has great products and good prices too

 

picture is under my user name,very green can`t imagine how you missed it.

 

small picture.
it aint posted in the thread.
looks good though.

 

thanks,i can`t seem to post a picture,can see it in the gallery.

 

peow... it could be a 2wd bed. im not sure. it was on the truck when i bought it. all i know is there is no rust anywhere on it and the inside is solid. bedliner coming soon